Russian hackers have claimed credit for taking down the websites of two British airports in Birmingham and London
Birmingham and London City airports experienced technical problems today
The websites of two major British airports have been shut down amid claims they were targeted by Russian hackers.
Birmingham Airport and London City Airport have been affected by technical problems this afternoon, with visitors struggling to access their websites.
People trying to visit the websites are instead being redirected to error pages that say they can’t connect because of a ‘bad gateway’ and indicate that the sites are having problems with their servers.
Two Russian hacker groups – UserSec and Anonymous Russia – claimed responsibility for the outage in retaliation for NATO’s support for Ukraine.
On its Telegram page, UserSec, which has previously targeted Swedish airline SAS, wrote: ‘We have decided to put one of the UK’s largest airports to sleep. Glory to Russia!’
The hacking group also shared a post by Anonymous Russia claiming to have taken down Birmingham Airport’s website.
Pro-Russian hacking collective UserSec posted on Wednesday that it had taken down London City Airport’s website
Users trying to access Birmingham Airport’s website were greeted with an error page stating a ‘gateway time-out’
Those trying to visit London City Airport’s website received a similar message saying there was an error with the host
It also shared a post by Anonymous Russia which said: ‘Anonymous Russia joins UK airport attack! The international British airport Birmingham is sparkling before the eyes! Glory to Russia!’
According to Check-Host, a tool that monitors websites and their availability, both Birmingham and London City experienced server errors on Wednesday afternoon.
While the cause is yet to be confirmed, Birmingham Airport confirms it is looking into the issues, and there is no indication it is affecting normal operations at the airports.
A spokesman for Birmingham Airport said: ‘Some people have reported that our website is loading slowly this afternoon. We are investigating.’
A spokesman for London City Airport said: ‘London City Airport is currently operating as normal.
‘London City Airport’s website is up and running, but access was briefly restricted this afternoon. Our IT team is investigating the matter.’
Russian hacker groups have targeted Western countries since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in retaliation for support for Kiev.
UserSec first gained notoriety in February of this year when it worked with another Russian hacker collective, KillNet, to target multiple hospitals and medical providers in the United States.
In the same month it took part in an attack on Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) that took its website offline.
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